Are we ready to enter the Age of Onlinetenment?

Last week Jinal Shah, a Digital Strategist at JWT, shared an essay with her friends titled, 2012: A Year of Digital Behavioral Shifts. It’s a great piece and Jinal puts together a strong case for changing the way we operate online, with a renewed focus on thinking, rather than just sharing, liking and retweeting. She believes this new era is upon us, calling it the age of enlightenment in our digital history. This transformation will be led by:

[...] thinkers, artists and storytellers not programmers and geeks. These are people driven by a vision that’s a bit more individualistic, centers more around exploring the tapestry of human opinions, intimacy and feelings instead of connecting the world into one large immutable being.

And what will this lead to? According to Jinal: a mindful web… systems that:

1. Are designed for constructive debate and dialogue by exposing us to different points of views2. Are designed for quality and intimacy – not quantity. Where there is less immediate gratification.

It’s a compelling vision and one I wholeheartedly support. But it’s also a big task. The simple truth is that the vast, vast majority of people aren’t interested in changing their behavior. They enjoy the relatively simple gamification elements of Foursqaure and the ability to express their opinions view a digital ‘thumbs up.’ Even when viewed at the micro level, exploring just the world of marketers that both Jinal and I are part of, it’s evident that not everyone is interested in exploring the new possibilities.

And yet, I’m literally inundated by the highly intelligent thinking of people in our industry who are committed to building something better, to thinking deeper and exploring ideas that are challenging. From Tim Stock to Justin Briggs to countless others the issue is how do we build the type of web Jinal is talking about that will not only connect all these great people and ideas, but allow them to be connected in a meaningful way? How does an idea I write about, say, The Cultural Singularity Paradoxconnect or build upon an idea like Interdependence, Chomsky and the crowbarby Eaon Pritchard, a winner of Neil Perkin’s Post of the Month Hall of Fame?

I think we still need the “programmers and tinkerers and computer scientists,” the builders of the web’s Industrial Age according to Shah. We need them to continue to build, but this time to build a web that intelligently connects and combines the work of those that will create the Age of “Onlinetenment” (my term, not Shah’s).

In her book, Reality is Broken, Jane McGonigal relates the story of Halo 3 and the collaborative effort to record 10 billion kills by game players. How can the marketing industry create that sort of collaborative effort? On the subject of games, a subject I’m passionate about, Shah says, “Gaming will have a larger role to play in the age of enlightenment, but perhaps not so overt. It’s job will and should become about elevating the meaning and importance associated with a like, number of friends and followers etc.”

And while that’s important, I think gaming can play a bigger, more important role in a different way. Games can solve bigger problems than improving the meaning of the quantitative issues Shah mentions. Games can be used to rally people (marketers?) to work for a common cause, to unite for a single purpose greater than themselves. That’s something I think we could use. Rather than everyone writing and thinking in isolation, we need to figure out how to write and think together. When that happens maybe we will enter the Age of Onlinetenment.

I think this a fascinating subject. And if we can use it solve a greater cause then that is just awesome.

My worry is that we as marketers keep worrying about the next thing, the future, how can we give our clients an edge – or at least help them be the first to use the new X (oh, how we all clicked when an agency were the first to use the new Facebook timeline). But honestly, if I didn’t go on twitter, ad blogs/magazines/etc. would I ever know (or care) about all this?

To think of the time we (people like you and me) spend looking for the new, when we could look at the current. And this be a bit of topic for this post, but games is just like that. 2012 will be the year of game (design etc.) perhaps, but if we didn’t force it down the throats of consumers, would it be as big? And would anyone lose out? E.g: I personally check in on Foursquare to procrastinate, not because I get a deal (I’ve never used a deal actually). Only once was it useful to open the app, because I saw an old friend was nearby.

These may be the ramblings of a (m)ad man, but sometimes this planner would love to just sit down and make great work, based on what consumers like now – not what they will like. And if we as marketeers would stop pitching the next big thing to our clients and just focus on what they do and tell that story in a simple and enjoyable way.

My apologies for using your blog for this ramble. And on a sidenote, I am sure I’ll keep looking for the next new because I find it interesting (and know I have to). But as a consumer myself, I don’t have the need that I myself claim consumers have…

http://www.rickliebling.com Rick

Tim,

You bring up a fair point, we do run the risk of never stopping and living in the now as marketers. Check out some of my posts under the category “slow social.”

bio

Hi, I'm Rick Liebling, Global Head of Marketing at Unmetric. I use this blog to share my thoughts on branding, marketing, advertising, PR, social media and how they all create, react to and reflect our culture.
Click on over to the "Speaking / Events / Writing" page to see a listing of content I've contributed to other sites and events where I've spoken.

claimer

This is normally where you might find one of those disclaimers that says the content of this blog is solely my own, and does not represent the thoughts or opinions of my employer or client. But aren't my thoughts the very reason my current employer chose to hire me? Don't they in fact want me to express my thoughts? And does any reasonable person believe that when I'm discussing ABC's Fall lineup or the cultural relevance of Bioshock that I am, in fact, speaking on behalf of one of my clients?
So yeah, I'll go ahead and own this.